We’re pleased to see that The Hidden Fortress will feature a new 2K digital restoration, with both uncompressed monaural audio and an alternate 5.1 surround track that preserves the original Perspecta simulated stereo effects in DTS-HD Master Audio. You’ll also get a new audio commentary by film historian Stephen Prince and new English subtitle translation. Also included will be the previous Criterion DVD extras, among them the 2003 Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create documentary segment, a 2001 interview with George Lucas, the trailer and a booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Catherine Russell. Very nice.

Here’s a look at the cover art for A Brief History of Time, The Hidden Fortress and Persona. Amazon pre-order links have been updated...

“The problem you experienced was a temporary issue with some of our catalog data and it has been fixed. If you still have problems, please let us know. Customers should never lose access to their Amazon Instant Video purchases. If they have any issues accessing purchased videos, they should contact customer service.”

Still, the Amazon Instant Video terms of use do say:

“Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may become unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions and for other reasons, and Amazon will not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming.”

Bottom line: When you “buy” digital content, you’re not really buying anything concrete and your access can be denied at any time, for any number of reasons. This kind of thing has been a problem before and it will absolutely be a problem again. Caveat emptor. More on all this here at arstechinca.com.

About Bill Hunt

Bill Hunt is the Editor in Chief of The Digital Bits, which he founded in the early days of the DVD format in 1997 to bring together the Hollywood film community and movie fans from around the world. His columns…